Media drives for computers include a wide variety of devices such as disk drives, optical drives and tape drives. Many such drives—particularly hard disk drives—are sensitive to forces caused by mechanical shocks. Consequently, the drives may be damaged or destroyed if they are not handled carefully.
One common scenario in which media drives are frequently damaged is during installation of the drives into a computer chassis. During manufacture, each drive is usually slid into a cage or frame of some kind, which cage or frame is fixed to the inside of the computer chassis. Because incentives exist for fast production, the drives are sometimes inserted into the cage or frame with high force in order to install them quickly. But the high insertion force causes a high mechanical shock when the drive suddenly stops moving after reaching its engaged position in the cage or frame. Such high mechanical shocks can damage the drive, resulting in a failure of the computer when power is initially applied.